Enterprise Social Media Platforms Research Articles

Motivations to use multifunctional public goods in organizations: using agent-based modeling to explore differential uses of enterprise social media

Abstract This work conceptualizes enterprise social media (ESM) as a multifunctional public good that both supports communication that connects users directly and allows users to contribute or access communal information. We show how differing motivations to use an ESM—connective or communal goals—interact with individuals’ perceptions of activity on a platform, and the consequences this has for individual participation decisions and the viability of the digital space. We begin with a case study of the adoption of an ESM platform within a single organization. We then apply findings from this case study, combined with broader theories of technology adoption, to create agent-based simulations. We show that the connective and communal aspects of an ESM complement each other and can spur adoption; we also identify the importance of information decay as a variable influencing collective adoption. We end with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of our results.

Enterprise social media platforms for coping with an accelerated digital transformation

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate how to support small organizations to navigate the context of an accelerated Digital Transformation using Enterprise Social Media platforms, in response to external contingencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.Design/methodology/approachA longitudinal action research study, supported by an exploratory analysis that follows a hybrid approach of deductive and inductive reasoning, has been conducted in the context of a small organization. Several data collection techniques were used for context understanding and problem-solving.FindingsFindings suggest that value creation related to the use of Enterprise Social Media platforms supports small organizations in this accelerated context of Digital Transformation. Value perception is central in overcoming adoption barriers and achieving sustainable use of these platforms in daily basis activities, especially in remote working. External pressures, like those imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, play an important role in catalyzing digital initiatives.Research limitations/implicationsAs the main limitations to this paper, we highlight the study of a single organization in a specific context and the number of actors involved; hence, there is room to extend the study to other industries, organization sizes and contexts.Practical implicationsThis paper provides managers with insights into how to conduct their Enterprise Social Media initiatives in a turbulent environment, highlighting their key success elements, and their potential to create value for their organizations and stakeholders. Furthermore, managers could explore the potential of Enterprise Social Media platforms to support organizations in the Digital Transformation journey.Social implicationsSmall organizations play an important role in generating wealth for nations around the world. However, governments encounter difficulties in supporting the Digital Transformation of this type of organization. This paper provides insights into how to use an affordable and intuitive technology to include this type of organization in the Digital Transformation journey.Originality/valueA long-term study of Enterprise Social Media is recommended, but quite rare in the Information Systems literature. This study adopts a longitudinal investigation to analyze the use of Enterprise Social Media to support a small organization to adapt, in balance with their internal and external contingencies, providing a further contribution to the contingency theory. This research also adds contributions to the sociotechnical system perspective, analyzing the deep imbrication between social and technical subsystems in the required organizational change, supporting a small organization for coping with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Changing the ownership of ideas: Multimedial accomplishment of collaborative reflection in an organizational workshop

Reflecting on work processes together with one's co-workers is becoming increasingly important in workplaces. This study examined collaborative reflection in the organizational context through analyzing a case of a complex workplace setting where an enterprise social media platform, talk-in-interaction, and handwriting were used to engage participants in the process of reflection. Drawing on the concept of remediation, the results show that collaborative reflection is interactionally accomplished through a multimedial activity chain, in which the ownership of presented ideas is transformed from individual ideas into shared views of the team. The study shows in detail how the process of collaborative reflection evolves in workshop activities and how both traditional and digital media are used to support the process.

Development and Validation of the Online Interaction Scale in Organizational Context.

The evolution of Web 2.0 and social networks has led to the increased use of enterprise social media platforms (ESMP), making online interactions more common in organizations. However, few studies have researched online interactions in organizational context. This study addressed this gap using two research phases: a qualitative phase and a quantitative phase. The qualitative study phase identified two dimensions of online interaction: employee–employee online interaction and employee–platform online interaction. The employee–employee online interaction assessed responsiveness and suitability. The employee–platform online interaction assessed usefulness, applicability, and ease of use. The quantitative study phase applied a proposed conceptual framework derived from the qualitative study to create and validate measures for a new online interaction scale. This was done using a systematic scale development process. Measuring online interaction can help drive future quantitative research, providing an instrumental basis for further exploring the scientific management practice elements that govern employee psychology and behavior in cyberspace.

Modelling employees’ social networking behaviours on enterprise social media: the influence of enterprise social media visibility

ABSTRACT Enterprise Social Media (ESM) is thought to provide new capabilities for employees to establish and manage relationships with co-workers. However, little is known about how employees use these new capabilities, thus leading to performance variation. Drawing on a rich dataset from an ESM platform built in a Chinese high-tech company, this paper uses Exponential Random Graph Models (ERGMs) to examine how employees build their social networks on ESM platforms with the visibility affordance of ESM. The results reveal that (1) employees’ networking behaviours on ESM platforms are limited by formal organisational boundaries such as department and hierarchical positions, and they tend to reproduce their working structures rather than to build new ties across horizontal and vertical boundaries enabled by ESM; (2) employees’ networking behaviours are more likely to be influenced by their positions in formal hierarchy than by their informal hierarchies derived from their interactions on ESM; and (3) employees use ESM to reinforce their natural networking tendencies, including preferential attachment, closure and homophily. These findings extend our understandings of employees’ social networking behaviours on ESM platforms and provide insights for managers to make better decisions on the design and implementation of ESM thus to achieve the expected benefits.

Leveraging enterprise social network technology: understanding the roles of compatibility and intrinsic motivation

PurposeThis study explores the factors influencing the value of enterprise social media (ESM) from the perspective of compatibility. Establishing a theoretical model based on compatibility theory, the authors examine the effects of two dimensions of compatibility and the mediating effects of employees' intrinsic motivations. ESM is an important tool that helps companies to enhance knowledge sharing and cross-department collaboration. Thus, it is important to understand factors that can facilitate the role of ESM in improving enterprise operating performance.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted a survey among 353 users of a leading ESM platform and empirically investigated how compatibility influences ESM value through employees' intrinsic motivations. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was applied to study the relationship among compatibility, employees' intrinsic motivations and ESM value.FindingsThe empirical research results indicate that compatibility of self-interest with group interest influences the value of ESM, and intrinsic motivations toward collaboration and toward knowledge management partially mediate the effects of the two dimensions of compatibility on ESM value.Research limitations/implicationsFirst, the empirical analysis relies on data from surveying employees of Chinese companies. Therefore, one direction for future research is to reexamine the model using data from other countries. Second, the effects of compatibility identified in the study may vary among different ESM platforms. In addition, the findings may change for organizations having different sizes.Practical implicationsThis finding suggests that managers should pay close attention to potential conflicts of interest when implementing ESM to enhance group communication and collaboration. This study also highlights the importance of compatibility of new working processes with experience in practice. In addition, intrinsic motivations towards both cooperation and knowledge management in ESM are important factors influencing the value creation of ESM. Therefore, to cultivate employees' intrinsic motivation, managers and organizations need to facilitate the formation of a collaborative atmosphere and habits of cooperative adoption.Originality/valueAlthough previous studies show that compatibility is a strong belief salient to technology acceptance and continuance usage behavior, the operational definition of compatibility developed by prior studies has generally been limited to the technology perspective and the individual level. However, the primary benefit of ESM is enabling online team collaboration and knowledge sharing across various departments. Thus, the level of compatibility between employees' self-interests and group interests may influence their intrinsic motivations toward ESM usage. From this perspective of individual–group interest conflicts, the authors propose a conceptual research model based on the theory of compatibility in innovation diffusion.

Why and how to use enterprise social media platforms: The employee’s perspective

Literature supports the relevance of knowledge sharing in a company. Considering that social media plays an important role in this process, this paper analyzes the antecedents and consequences of the use of enterprise social media platforms according to the employee's perception. Based on the Motivation-Opportunity-Ability framework and using two different methodologies (Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling and fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis), we find that three different combinations of motivation, opportunity and ability factors, combined in pairs, promote the use of enterprise social media platforms, leading to knowledge creation and task performance. These findings shed light on how a company can influence the use of enterprise social media platforms for achieving its objectives.

Idea Co-creation on Social Media Platforms

Innovation scholars have long been discussing social media as a rich source of information, knowledge, and new ideas, yet, whether or how social media can directly intervene with organizational ideation processes remains unclear. In this study, we investigate the impact of external and enterprise social media platforms on organizational ideation. Grounded in 79 cases and adapting social capital theory in social media contexts, this study attempts to develop a theory of social ideation. Social ideation consists of social media-enabled mechanisms that generate social capital, enable multi-level social exchanges, foster idea co-creation activities such as idea sourcing, filtering, elaboration, and integration, and ultimately lead to effective ideation. Our study contributes to social media and innovation research by revealing the intermediary mechanisms that link the use of social media platforms to organizational ideation performance.

How to build employees' relationship capital through different enterprise social media platform use: the moderating role of innovation culture

PurposeThe purpose of the present study is to build a research model to study how the use of different enterprise social media platforms affects employees' relationship capital, and the moderating role of innovation culture is also examined.Design/methodology/approachStructural equation modeling was performed to test the research model and hypotheses. Surveys were conducted in an electronic commerce company in China that uses different social media platforms, generating 301 valid responses for analysis.FindingsFirst, private social media used for work-related purposes can contribute to employees' relationship capital, and public social media QQ used for work-related purposes can contribute to employees' communication quality. WeChat used for social-related purposes has a positive effect on employees' information exchange. Second, innovation culture acts as a positive moderator between work-related media use and employees' information exchange, while innovation culture acts as a negative moderator between social-related WeChat use and employees' information exchange. Third, innovation culture acts as a positive moderator between work-related QQ use and employees' trust, while innovation culture acts as a negative moderator between social-related QQ use and employees' trust.Originality/valueFirst, this paper contributes to the information system (IS) social media literature by studying the effect of the use of different enterprise social media platforms used for different purposes on employees' relationship capital. Second, the authors contribute to relationship capital theory by clarifying that use of public and private social media platforms for social- and work-related purposes is an important driver of the formation of employees' relational capital. Third, the present study also contributes to enterprise social media literature by confirming that innovation culture acts as a different moderator between use of different enterprise social media platforms and employees' relationship capital.

EXPLORING THE IMPACT OF ENTERPRISE SOCIAL MEDIA AFFORDANCES ON WORK PERFORMANCE AND KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER

ABSTRACT One of the derivatives of collective work is knowledge, and this remains a significant resource to any organization, either valued as capital or part of the intangible assets of that organization. The effective application of knowledge, through processing and transfer mediums can impact positively work performance. There have been noted studies on enterprise social media affordances with regards to the use of different platforms and the user experiences though these studies did not take into consideration how the design differences impacted the performance of enterprise social media platforms. To fill this knowledge gap, this research focused on determining the impact that a singular enterprise social media platform has on work performance, within the framework of knowledge transfer. This research collected data from 317 employees of a Malagasy company using the internal social media platform and it was found that the affordances of association, persistence, visibility and editability had a positive relationship with knowledge acquisition and knowledge provision, and these in turn also promoted work performance among them. The research also showed that there is a mediation effect of knowledge acquisition on the impact of ESM affordances on work performance. A key finding of this research was also in the fact that through the knowledge transfer process, organizations can co-create value in a sustainable way that impacts performance, and this is aided by the innovation process, along with the levers for action on the variables. The essential variables for which actions need to be taken are derived from the complex relationships of technology (ESM affordances), knowledge transfer (knowledge provision and knowledge acquisition) and organizational performance (work performance and task performance). Keywords Enterprise Social Media Affordances, Work Performance, Knowledge Transfer

Enablers of and constraints on employees' information sharing on enterprise social media

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the various enablers of and constraints on employees' information sharing on an enterprise social media platform. It draws on two theoretical perspectives, communication privacy management theory and the technology affordance framework, as well as on empirical data in an attempt to paint a comprehensive picture of the factors shaping employees' decisions to share or not share information on enterprise social media.Design/methodology/approachThis qualitative field study is based on semi-structured interviews and enterprise social media review data from a large Nordic media organization.FindingsOn an enterprise social media platform, privacy management principles shape employees' information-sharing decisions in relation to personal privacy boundaries, professional boundaries and assumed risks, online safety concerns and perceived audience. Additionally, the technological affordances of visibility, awareness, persistence and searchability shape employees' information sharing in varying and sometimes even contradictory ways. Finally, organizational factors, such as norms, tasks and media repertoires, are associated with employees' information-sharing decisions. Together, these three dimensions, personal, technological and organizational, form a model of the enablers of and constraints on employees' decisions to share information on enterprise social media.Originality/valueThis study extends the understanding of different factors shaping employees' decisions to share or not share information on enterprise social media. It extends the two applied theories by uniquely combining interpersonal privacy management principles with a technological affordance framework that focuses on the relationship between the user and the technology. This research also furthers the authors' knowledge of what privacy management principles mean in the organizational context. This study shows connections between the two theories and extends the understanding of technology affordances as not only action possibilities but also constraining factors. Additionally, by revealing what kinds of factors encourage and inhibit information sharing on enterprise social media, the results of this study support organizations in their efforts to manage information sharing on enterprise social media systems.

Gender, rank, and social networks on an enterprise social media platform

In this paper, we harness server-side data—540,000 messages generated by 2085 users on TamTamy, an Enterprise Social Media (ESM) platform—to examine how gender and rank shaped “homophily” (the tendency to connect with similar others) and centrality in an ESM network. Drawing on the logic of “distinctiveness theory,” which argues that the numeric rarity of a category in a given setting promotes the use of that category as a basis for connecting with others, we hypothesized and found: (a) the tendency to connect with same-gender others was stronger among women than among men; (b) the tendency to connect with same-rank others was stronger among high-ranking employees than among low-ranking employees; (c) for high-ranking men, rank was more important than gender as a basis for connecting with others; and (d) for low-ranking women, gender was more important than rank as a basis for connecting with others. We also found that whereas higher ranking individuals were more likely to be in central (bridging) positions in the overall network, gender was unrelated to network centrality. Our study suggests that the affordances of ESM for open and distributed communications notwithstanding, the social networks that emerge on ESM platforms may reinforce social stratification on some dimensions while diminishing it on others.

Improving Employee Agility Using Enterprise Social Media and Digital Fluency: Moderated Mediation Model

The usage of enterprise social media (ESM) has rapidly increased in the workplace. Firms adopt the ESM platform for the knowledge sharing and work-related communication of employees. However, the efficient use of the ESM technology in the workplace remains a challenge for organizations and business leaders. Previous studies have inconsiderably focused on this domain of research. The existing research investigates the influence of ESM usage on employee agility through meta-knowledge considering the moderation role of digital fluency. Using 263 responses from Chinese employees, this study investigates how ESM usage improves employee agility through meta-knowledge. Results confirm that organizations can improve the meta-knowledge of employees through investment in the ESM technology and that ESM usage is significantly related to individual agility via meta-knowledge. Digital fluency strengthens the relationship between ESM usage and employee agility and supports the correlation between ESM usage and employee agility via meta-knowledge. Finally, on the basis of the results, the theoretical and managerial implications of the study are discussed.

Towards a digital work environment: the influence of collaboration and networking on employee performance within an enterprise social media platform

Today’s organizations increasingly implement enterprise social media platforms to provide a digital work environment. Hereby, organizations expect various benefits, such as improved employee performance. In our research, we aim at uncovering how the introduction of enterprise social media platforms can support creating a digital work environment and how this digital work environment can influence an employee’s performance. To answer these research questions, we perform a survey-based investigation among 247 employees of an international financial corporation headquartered in Germany. For our investigation, we conceptualize that a digital work environment must consist of a task and a social dimension. Our findings show that enterprise social media platforms address both work environment dimensions by enabling collaboration, as well as networking among employees. We also find that employees who collaborate and network via enterprise social media platforms, increase their work performance by becoming more efficient and also more innovative. We find that networking’s impact on an employee’s innovativeness is significantly stronger than that of collaboration. Finally, we show that our research contributes to the literature by, for example, shedding light to the relationship between ESM use and employee performance. Furthermore, by showcasing the relevant ESM platform functionalities that influence the collaboration and networking impacts, we provide insights to the actual IT artifact. Building on this, our study also yields various practical implications, such as proving which of the ESM functionalities are essential when increasing the employees’ collaboration and networking, and ultimately increasing their performance.

Online Tie Formation in Enterprise Social Media

We study the antecedents to tie formation on an (Facebook-like) enterprise social media platform implemented to support cross-boundary connections. Research has produced mixed findings regarding the role of social media in cultivating bridging vs. closed networks. We examine the tie formation patterns of 1,386 enterprise social media users over a two-year period. Specifically, we observe who became (or chose not s become) “friends” with whom at the dyadic level and relate the decisions to various mechanisms that affect one’s network to expand, constrain, or bridge. Using logistic and OLS regressions, we find that users tend to form ties via reciprocity and transitivity (with friends of friends), both of which help expand one’s network. We also find strong networking tendency toward functional and hierarchical homophily (same business unit and same rank, respectively), which is likely to constrain one’s network (closed network structure). We find that one’s participation in various online interest groups is likely to open one’s network (bridging network structure) while no evidence found for preferential attachment. Overall, we find that enterprise social media offers features, some of which are likely to foster bridging while others foster closed networks via different mechanisms.

Enterprise social media usage: The motives and the moderating role of public social media experience

Enterprise Social Media platforms have been adopted and deployed in the organizations with the aim of improving employees' work performance through facilitating internal communications, knowledge sharing, and collaboration. Even though public social media platforms, such as Facebook, are widely adopted, enterprise social media face engagement issues from employees. In this study, we investigate the motives of using enterprise social media and the moderating effect of employees' public social media experience. By surveying 157 employees who use enterprise social media in their organizations, we find that the motives of information sharing, social interaction, and entertainment positively affect employees' usage of enterprise social media. Employees' public social media experience negatively moderates the effect of information seeking. The study contributes to social media literature by examining the effect of employees’ public social media usage on enterprise social media usage. The findings offer insights on how to motivate employees to engage in enterprise social media.

The impact of enterprise social media platforms on knowledge sharing

PurposeEnterprise social media platforms (ESMPs) are web 2.0-based computer media tools that facilitate knowledge sharing by employees. The purpose of this paper is to outline the potential of ESMPs in both enabling and hindering knowledge sharing from the perspective of affordances.Design/methodology/approachThis is a conceptual paper which integrates the literature on ESMPs’ affordances and knowledge sharing.FindingsThis paper finds that prior research on affordances only considered artifacts without much attention on the role of individual goals and organizational context. ESMPs may both enable and hinder knowledge sharing by affording different user behaviors contingent on artifacts, individual goals and organizational context.Practical implicationsThe results of the paper will help managers and ESMPs designers to better understand the potential of ESMPs and pay attention to the positive and negative impacts of ESMPs in the process of knowledge sharing.Originality/valueThe paper derives a new categorization of affordances based on individual goals and organization context and portrays a model to describe how and when these affordances enable knowledge sharing through the development of transactive memory system and social capital and hinder knowledge sharing through overload, groupthink and privacy invasion.

What is the meaning of sharing: informing, being informed or information overload?

In recent years, several Norwegian public organizations have introduced Enterprise Social Media Platforms. The rationale for their implementation pertains to a goal of improving internal communications and work processes in organizational life. Such objectives can be attained on the condition that employees adopt the platform and embrace the practice of sharing. Although sharing work on Enterprise Social Media Platforms can bring benefits, making sense of the practice of sharing constitutes a challenge. In this regard, the paper performs an analysis on a case whereby an Enterprise Social Media Platform was introduced in a Norwegian public organization. The analytical focus is on the challenges and experiences of making sense of the practice of sharing. The research results show that users faced challenges in making sense of sharing. The paper indicates that sharing is interpreted and performed as an informing practice, which results in an information overload problem and causes users to become disengaged. The study suggests a continued need for the application of theoretical lenses that emphasize interpretation and practice in the implementation of new digital technologies in organizations.

Strategic knowledge management and enterprise social media

PurposeThis paper aims to examine if (and how), enterprise social media (ESM) can be understood as a strategic knowledge management phenomenon to improve organizational performance.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses intellectual capital theory and its functional building blocks to organize different types of the ESM platforms, based on secondary data. It then connects these findings to the underling intellectual capital tenets to introduce a conceptual model that explicates how ESM impacts strategic knowledge management, and vice versa.FindingsThis paper concludes that ESM provides a unique complement to traditional strategic knowledge management. The authors argue that ESM differs substantially from other contexts in which intellectual capital has been applied, and extend intellectual capital with three appropriate dimensions (human, social and structural capital). Given the potentially disruptive nature of ESM, this framework helps firms understand the nature of the changes that are needed.Originality/valueThe paper provides the first review of the business needs that are served by the software functions and management processes under the ESM banner. This original contribution takes the intellectual capital and strategic knowledge management discussions from their usual high levels of abstraction and relates them to the real world of ESM, focusing on outcomes. Its unique “Intellectual Capital Framework for the Socially Oriented Enterprise” includes distinct, testable propositions that provide a practical approach to strategically planning, implementing and optimizing ESM.

Innovation resistance and strategic implications of enterprise social media websites in Taiwan through knowledge sharing perspective

Virtual communities consist of social media users whose relationships are strengthened through information and knowledge transfers, as well as interactions among members. A new connection between customer feedback and brand modeling has been formed through social media. Therefore, this research aims to enhance effective management of enterprise social media platforms, as the key to prosperity in social media is built on the knowledge sharing behavior of users. The study employs the theory of innovation resistance and summarizes 27 factors of barriers encountered by users during the knowledge sharing process in enterprise social media. These factors are further categorized into seven dimensions of resistance, such as usage barriers, value barriers, physical risks, trust risks, security belief barriers, mutual benefit belief barriers, and image barriers. The validity of the scales is confirmed by using the corroboration process of factor analysis. The strategic implications of the barriers are explored, and recommendations to overcome those barriers are proposed as part of management of enterprise social media sites.